Well. This is what I'll say about Halloween this year. We take what we can get. And as always, we make the best of a bad situation.

Usually, we get a huge staff photo of everyone in costume at the office each year—something that's been done at the very least every year since we moved to the waterfront office location in 2016. I even just today created a photo album on Flickr of just the group photos of staff costumes over the years, at least those that I managed to take myself. It includes the four since the office move (including the Zoom collage I created this year, seen above), and just two other years: 2005 and 2007. Because you see, I could not manage a "Halloween at PCC" photo album any year between 2011 and 2016. In 2011, Shobhit came home from L.A. for his birthday and Halloween, and I took Monday and Tuesday the 30th & 31st off so we could take transit down to stay overnight at Dad and Sherri's in Olympia (Shobhit having flown home, leaving his car in L.A.). In 2013, Shobhit did not come home, but rather I was in L.A. for his birthday, and then flew home on Halloween Day and took transit straight to Olympia for Halloween instead of heading home. And then of course, in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016, I was in L.A. for West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval, and thus was not at work for any of those years. For any other year not mentioned since I've worked at PCC, I simply did not get a group shot that year.

Anyway! I noted last year how the work group shot was getting bigger by leaps and bounds each year: 18 people in 2017; 39 in 2018; a whopping 56 in 2019. That's a 117% increase in 2018 and then a 44% increase in 2019. Well, this year we managed . . . twelve. A record low! And a steep plummet of 69% from last year.

But, of course, yes, I know: Zoom Fatigue. A lot of people are spending half or more of their days on virtual meetings, Zoom and Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. I have to spend very little time in virtual meetings by comparison, and I was all about this idea of a virtual Halloween event for work, so that at least it wouldn't be nothing at all. Doing nothing at all, I could not handle.

Thus, I managed the collage featuring 13 people, either in costume, or at least having done something creative with their Zoom feed. My favorite thing about this was the ability to get creative in ways that could not be done with an in-person party—to wit: virtual backgrounds. My own costume absolutely would not have been half as good without the virtual background I used. Claudia had the same idea, even though she just recycled the same "couples costume" she and Dylan had worn last year: "Eagle vs. Shark." They just swapped this year, so this time she wore the shark costume—and also used that spectacular under-sea virtual background.

And, even among these thirteen used for the collage, all of ten dressed up in genuine costumes themselves. I count Mary in that (she's second down from the top in the far right column), even though she had just used a "Pirate" Zoom filter. Still, it was funny and effective, and she had a great, huge spider on the wall behind her. Chris Lantz, just below Mary, hardly put forth any more effort than that either, but it still qualifies. But, Rachel T, bottom right corner, did not really dress up, but she had a baby who did; Julie, bottom left corner, did not dress up but she had a great virtual background complete with "BOOO" on it. And the woman just above Julie, whose name I still haven't figured out (I think she's new this year), had changed her name to "Ina Garten (Waiting for Jeffrey!)." This was some kind of reference others understood but I did not; and apparently her martini glass was a deliberate part of it.

All that said, more than just those 13 actually attended: I want to say that at its peak the party had about 25 attendees. I only managed a screenshot when there were still 19 present.

One notable surprise was to see Adrienne, Executive Assistant to the CEO and Board and also host of this party, with Molly over at her house. It's relatively widely known that they are longtime close friends, but they apparently do not actualy live together, so this would be generally frowned upon at this juncture, no? In fact, I had quite a moment of confusion when someone had said they hoped to see more "couples costumes" and Molly piped up with "Hello!"—she and Adrienne had dressed up in "Deer in Headlights," admittedly a really great themed couple of costumes. Briefly it had me wondering if they were a couple, but then Adrienne referred to her husband and their young son. I only learned from another work friend later that they do not live together; I was even told "I was very surprised to see them together." Hmm. Okay then. Well, kudos to their costumes anyway.

As for my own costume: I decided very soon after that fly landed on Mike Pence's head at the VP Debate that I would be him for Halloween. Getting this idea was honestly a lucky break, as I had been thinking for months how I had no clue what I would dress up as for Halloween this year. I went on a mission to find a fly to put on my head, and at first I wanted something hilariously huge to stick on my head, to make it as campy as possible. I did find a fly plushie but it was like twenty bucks, which seemed uselessly expensive for this one-time purpose. The thing is, everything I could find online otherwise were plastic flies that were roughly the same size as actual flies. And that wouldn't . . . you know, fly.

A couple of weeks ago Shobhit and I finally drove up to Display & Costume up in Northgate, and I finally found a workable plastic fly there. I still hoped for something bigger, but no such luck. In fact, when I asked an employee if they had any flies, she told me I was not the first to ask (of course I wasn't), and she escorted me to a spot where, of course, it was more plastic flies that were tiny. After spending just a little more time looking on my own, and actually getting help from another employee, Shobhit and I found what I needed on my own: a container of six or seven separate insects, all a couple of inches in length, and one of them was a fly! How did the employees not alresdy know this was there? These people need to learn a thing or two about customer service.

So. I had my fly. I had access to a suit jacket at home, and Shobhit had a solid red tie I could borrow—as that was the color tie Pence had worn—and, I already had a white dress shirt. The way I saw it, I had everything I needed.

But. But, but! What about my hair? I had more than one conversation with Laney in which she suggested I put baking powder in it, and I did not want to deal with that. I did, however, have a white wig which between Shobhit and me had been used three times already: when I was "an angel" in 1998; Shobhit wore it when we both cross dressed in West Hollywood in 2014; I last wore it when I dressed as a "fairy princess" in 2017. (I just realized it's been used for Halloween exactly every three years since 2014.) The wig is kind of long, however, and Mike Pence has short hair. The solution? This was why I stopped by Safeway Thursday afternoon to get barrettes and bobby pins. It took the use of all five barrettes in the pack as well as a few of the bobby pins (including two to keep the fly in place), but I managed it.

The hair clips were one of two things that made the costume better on Zoom than it ever could have been in person, because no one ever saw the back of my head on Zoom. And then of course, I found the blue background with white writing from the Constitution, which had been used at all the debates—so it looked a lot like I was actually participating in one of the debates! So then, what about my name? I wanted to change its display; I did not want it to say "Matthew McQuilkin" but I also didn't want it just to say "Mike Pence." For a while I considered "Queen Pence," especially if I had found a much bigger fly and could apply more makeup and look like a drag queen. Finally I settled on what was indeed the best option: "Drunk Pence," because I already knew I would be drinking during this party. And both "Drunk" and "Mike" end with a K sound. Perfect!

I made myself quick frozen margaritas before the party started at 3:30. In fact I took a full half hour starting at 3:00, to get dressed and prepare. (I did not sit at my desk in costume all day.)

And, my costume was very popular. We were all able to vote, and guess what—I won! (I actually voted for Freya's fantastic "Bag of Groceries" costume.) Which was funny, because I was so uber-focused on winning the pumpkin carving party with my ass-kissing "PCC Spooky Markets" logo design. But, only four people even submitted for that. Adrienne told us she had planned to offer $25 PCC Gift Cards for the top two, but with only four submissions, she made "an executive decision" and would just give the $25 to all of us. And for me, that was on top of the $50 Gift Card I'll be getting for winning the costume contest! YAY!

Obviously I think having this party was well worth it. It had been scheduled from 3:30 to 5:00, and people started to drop off after about an hour, but even when we were down to like 5 within the final 10 minutes, it was still fun hanging out and chatting with everyone. Prizes or not, I am eternally grateful we were still able to have a work Halloween in some form.

Oh by the way the full photo album on Flickr for this PCC party is here.

[posted 5:23 pm]